This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which Al Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans.quoteth professor lynch last week:
I have an open mind on these questions, want the U.S. mission to succeed, and have a great deal of confidence in the Obama national security team. I know that there have been a number of policy reviews at all levels of the government on Afghanistan strategy, and that most of the questions I can raise have already been discussed at one or the other. But at the same time, I find the strategic rationale for escalating the war in Afghanistan extremely thin, and the mismatch between avowed aims and available resources frighteningly wide. What are the strategic reasons for expanding the commitment in Afghanistan? Why should the US be committing to a project of armed state building now, in 2009?it looks like the president is falling for the fool's game.
I hope that the argument isn't that it's to prevent al-Qaeda from reconstituting itself in the Afghan safe havens. That's a fool's game. It makes sense to keep the pressure on al-Qaeda, but does that require "armed state building"?
Suppose the U.S. succeeded beyond all its wildest expectations, and turned Afghanistan into Nirvana on Earth, an orderly, high GDP nirvana with universal health care and a robust wireless network (and even suppose that it did this without the expense depriving Americans of the same things). So what? Al-Qaeda (or what we call al-Qaeda) could easily migrate to Somalia, to Yemen, deeper into Pakistan, into the Caucasus, into Africa --- into a near infinite potential pool of ungoverned or semi-governed spaces with potentially supportive environments. Are we to commit the United States to bringing effective governance and free wireless to the entire world?
i realize why he's doing this politically. afghanistan is a counterpoint to iraq. in his 2002 speech at the chicago anti-war protest, obama said: "I don’t oppose all wars... What I am opposed to is a dumb war." if iraq is the dumb war, he needs afghanistan to be the "smart war". if he doesn't have a smart war, it calls the first half of the 2002 quote into question and he risks being labeled a (shudder) "pacifist." unfortunately afghanistan is currently a conflict in search of a purpose. the clear purpose in 2001 has drifted away with evolving circumstances over the past 8 years. "rooting out havens for al qaeda" may be the best anyone can come up with right now. but, like lynch, i don't think it makes all that much sense.
